


him and his secret he was keeping

by TheJGatsby



Series: potentially lovely perpetually human [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M, Introspection, drabble essentially
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 02:43:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10630488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheJGatsby/pseuds/TheJGatsby
Summary: He’s been marching steadily towards this point for a long time, and he suspects he couldn’t have prevented it if he wanted to, and he’s not sure he would have wanted to anyway.(Or, a realization)





	

**Author's Note:**

> And thusly do I (kind of) end a six-month drought of posting anything reylo! (I've had this written for a while but I finally cleaned it up and posted it after the trailer dropped cause holy shit)  
> Also just as a note, it fits better within the context of the series than as a stand-alone, so if you haven't read the rest of this series, start at the beginning. They're all short, it won't take long.  
> Title from Genius Next Door by Regina Spektor

 

It started on Tatooine.

In retrospect, the path Kylo has been walking is obvious to him, as plain as the light of day. He can see every mile-marker he passed along the way, all the forks he took, everything that led him to this point. He’s only just noticed it, but it’s beyond clear that he’s been marching steadily towards this point for a long time, and he suspects he couldn’t have prevented it if he wanted to, and he’s not sure he would have wanted to anyway. It feels like fate, almost, in a way he’s afraid to confront. Fate, to him, has never been anything kind, and he has no reason to believe it would start now, so to ascribe this… revelation to destiny would be, surely, to doom it.

He’s in love with the scavenger, and it all started on Tatooine.

From the moment she hugged him in gratitude for helping her build her lightsaber, he was done for. It had been years since anyone had touched him like that, no pain, no fear, no sadness. She just… wanted to touch him. And she was  _ happy _ about it.

He’s run that one moment through his mind more times than he can count. He’s- hell, he’s  _ dreamed _ about it, her arms around him, a split second of touch before he’s jolted awake. It’s pathetic. It should be pathetic. Objectively, he knows that he would be disgusted with himself, if Snoke were still alive, if it were five years ago- stars above, the excess of  _ sentiment _ , but-

He likes it, he thinks.

At least, he understands Vader, now. And Snoke as well, all of his warnings, his scorn, the importance of avoiding feelings like this, of preying only on grief and anger, keeping wounds open wide, the certainty of a hurt never allowed to heal. Kylo thought all feeling was like that, bittersweet at best, agonizing most of the time. Even his love for his family had always been… tainted, by fear, by Snoke, by the knowledge that he was a burden and a disappointment.

It was never just  _ good _ , the way this is. Whole, and his, and untainted by anxiety or expectations- she knows him at his worst, and he can never let her down, and something in that is an incredible relief.

He’s not sure whether Snoke taught him to hate and fear his own happiness or whether he learned that all on his own, but he knows that it’s hard to stop. It’s hard to hold onto something good without letting it be smothered by the dread of its imminent, inevitable loss. But loving the scavenger won’t go away, no matter how hard he tries, every time he thinks of her is the same thrill in his chest, the admiration, the adoration, the giddy memory of her smiling at him. So he uses it to practice. He feels the good thing, and he holds onto that, and he lets the visceral, hateful reflex come, acknowledges his instinctual, long-taught fear and disgust, and then he lets it go. Everything ugly melts away, and he’s left with just the feeling he wants to hold onto.

It feels horribly selfish and indulgent and foolish, fills him with a childlike sense of shame as if he expects to be chastised, but at the same time there’s a part of him that thinks this is right, this is how people are  _ supposed _ to feel, this is how everyone else can be happy so much of the time when everything is so terrible. His head is a mess, more often than not, never quite sure whether thoughts and feelings are the result of Snoke or Luke or his parents or, rarest of all, his own heart, but for once he’s  _ alone _ in it, with the freedom to pick and choose what he wants to keep and what he wants to unlearn, without the cold, creeping sensation of someone else in his mind, pulling him one way or another, darkening everything with his touch.

Kylo closes his eyes and opens himself up and reaches his mind out across the galaxy, broad and searching and- there. He can feel her, as easy as breathing, a pinpoint in the universe a hundred star systems away, but she might as well be right next to him. She’s happy, with her friends, and he reaches a little bit closer, but as soon as he does her joy dampens and a vague sense of alarm pricks at her mind, so he backs away, curses himself, keeps his distance.

This is all he has, the feeling of her, distant and misty, and it’s enough. It’s more than enough. He loves her, and he knows she’s safer and happier and better off as long as he’s nowhere near her, and that’s the way he wants it. It’s a strange sort of masochism, to force a separation like this, but he hates the thought of facing her as he is, incomplete, still half the mangled creature made of dark things, still learning how to want something without ruining it, how to love someone without hurting them. No, better to keep himself from her until he can present to her someone worthy of her.

He’s sure a day will come when just reaching into the Force and letting the nebulous glow of her being wash over him won’t be enough, when the insatiable hunger that’s always been at the heart of him will take over again, when he’ll want  _ more _ , and he’ll deal with that when, if, it happens. For now, he stays far away, and he practices feeling, and he revels in the knowledge that she’s out there, and in the quietest, most secret part of his heart, he entertains the fantasy of maybe, one day, when he knows how to be human, when he’s healed to the point of being unrecognizable, seeing her again, face to face, as himself, instead of just brushing her presence in the Force.

Someday. Maybe.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [tumblr](http://thejgatsbykid.tumblr.com)!


End file.
